Looking for a fun way to learn Korean with KPop Songs?
Well, if so, you’re in luck! Below, we’ll go over some of the lyrics for a few popular Kpop songsย and give you explanations about what they mean. Then you can use them in your day-to-day interactions in Koreanย or sing along to the songs.
By the end of this article, we’re sure that you’ll have another reason to love and learn the Korean language!
This article includes phrases written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet. If you can’t read Hangul yet, it’s possible to learn in about 90 minutes, so what are you waiting for?
We’ve included a FREE PDF version of this lesson that you can take with you on the go. Check it out below:
Let’s get started!
Contents
- 1 Learn Korean with Kpop
- 2 Study Korean With Kpop Idols
- 2.1 BIGBANG – ย ๊ฝ ๊ธธ (Flower Road)
- 2.2 Black Pinkย – ๋๋๋๋ (Ddu-du ddu-du)
- 2.3 Roy Kimย – ๊ทธ๋ ํค์ด์ง๋ฉด ๋ผ (Only then)
- 2.4 BtoBย – ๋ ์์ธ ์ ๋๋ค (Only One For Me)
- 2.5 Hyuna –ย ๋นจ๊ฐ์ (Red)
- 2.6 Sistar โ Touch My Body
- 2.7 Exo –ย ๋๋์ ๋ฏธ๋ ย (Wolf)ย
- 2.8 Miss A โ I Caught Ya
- 2.9 4 Minute โ ๋ฏธ์ณ (Crazy)
- 3 Wrap Up
Learn Korean with Kpop
One of the most effective ways to learn Korean is to study Kpopย song lyrics.
The great thing about this study method is thatย song lyrics are easy to memorize. If you learn Korean with Kpop, then the new grammar or vocabulary that you pick up from the songs can help speed up your Korean learning and also make learning more fun.
Even better, if you use K-pop phrases in your flashcards, you’ll be reminded of the song, which will make it even easier to remember!
So, how do you learn Korean with Kpop? It’s actually very easy. A lot of bonafide Kpop lovers and language learners will tell you that the first Korean words and phrases that they’ve learned were actually lyrics from their favorite Kpop Song!ย
Kpop Lyrics
Because the music helps you recall Korean vocabulary, Kpop lyrics are a fantastic location to start learning Korean words, phrases, and expressions. Add in the fact that if you’re a genuine fan of a certain group, you’ll be singing the song over and over again, which will help you memorize Korean phrases even more.
Study Korean With Kpop Idols
You can study Korean with the Kpop idols that we’ll be mentioning below. We’ll give you a brief introduction to these Kpop idols and some of their easy Kpop songs to sing and learn Korean from. Let’s do this!
BIGBANG – ย ๊ฝ ๊ธธ (Flower Road)
Bigbang is a K-Pop group that rose to stardom in the early 2000s. They have a huge fanbase and remain extremely popular. In early 2018, they made a comeback with the single Flower Road. As always, Bigbang produced a solid hit.

This Korean song was produced by two members of the group, G.Dragon, and T.O.P. It was written as the last song before their hiatus due to military enlistment.
In the song “Flower Road”, let’s look at these lyrics:
๊ทธ๋ฆฌ์์ง๋ฉด ๋์์ ์ค์
๊ทธ๋ ๋ ๋ค์ ๋ ์ฌ๋ํด์ค์
์ด ๊ฝ ๊ธธ ๋ฐ๋ผ ์ ์ ์ฌ์ด๊ฐ๋ค๊ฐ
๊ทธ ์๋ฆฌ ๊ทธ๊ณณ์์ ๋ ๊ธฐ๋ค๋ ค์
Let’s go over the meaning of the first line:
๊ทธ๋ฆฌ์์ง๋ฉด ๋์์ ์ค์
(geuriwojimyeon dorawa jwoyo)
If you miss me, then come back to me
- ๊ทธ๋ฆฌ์ (geuriwo) – This means โ to miss.” It is followed by -์ง๋ฉด (jimyeon) which signifies condition or possibility. It is like saying โifโ, and also serves as a connector of two clauses.
- ๋์์ (dorawa) – This is from the root word ๋์์ค๋ค (doraoda) which means “come back.”
Black Pinkย – ๋๋๋๋ (Ddu-du ddu-du)
Black Pink debuted in 2016 and was an instant hit, topping sales charts and winning New Artist of the Year at the Seoul Music Awards. They solidified their status as an all-star group with hits throughout 2017.

In 2018 their hit “Ddu-du ddu-du” topped the charts on its release and the music video garnered over 30 million views in its first 24 hours, becoming the most viewed video by a Korean group in that timeframe.
Let’s take a look at these lyrics from their song “Ddu-du ddu-du”:
๋ ๋ฒ ์๊ฐํด
ํํ ๋จ๋ค์ฒ๋ผ ์ฐฉํ ์ฒ์ ๋ชป ํ๋๊น
์ฐฉ๊ฐํ์ง ๋ง
์ฝ๊ฒ ์์ด์ฃผ๋ ๊ฑด ๋ ์ํ ๊ฑฐ์ผ
Let’s go over the meaning of the third line:
์ฐฉ๊ฐํ์ง ๋ง
(chakgakaji ma)
Donโt be mistaken
- This expression is usually used when you want to correct the belief or perception of a person you are dealing with.
- ์ฐฉ๊ฐํ๋ค (chakgakada) – This means โmistakeโ or โdelude oneself.โ
- ์ง ๋ง (ji ma) – This expression comes from the polite expression ์ง ๋ง์ธ์ (ji maseyo), which is used to add negation to a request that means โdo not.โ
Roy Kimย – ๊ทธ๋ ํค์ด์ง๋ฉด ๋ผ (Only then)
Roy Kim is a singer-songwriter who debuted through a popular singing competition, Superstar K. He is known to have a unique genre as he utilizes folk, ballad, acoustic, and pop in his music.

This Korean song is about a person who is in a relationship but talks about when they would know to break up. This song was covered by BTSโs Jeon Jungkook. You can see this theme in the following stanza.
Let’s take a look at this stanza from his song “Only then”:
๋ค๊ฐ ๋ค๋ฅธ ์ฌ๋์ด ์ข์์ง๋ฉด
๋ด๊ฐ ๋ ์๋ ๊ฒ ์ต์ํด์ง๋ฉด
๊ทธ๋๊ฐ ์ค๋ฉด ๊ทธ๋๊ฐ ๋๋ฉด
๊ทธ๋ ํค์ด์ง๋ฉด ๋ผ
Let’s go over the meaning of the first line of the stanza above:
๋ค๊ฐ ๋ค๋ฅธ ์ฌ๋์ด ์ข์์ง๋ฉด
(nega dareun sarami joajimyeon)
If you like another person
- ์ข์์ง๋ฉด (joajimyeon) – This word is made up of 2 words which are ์ข์ํ๋ค (joahada) and ์ง๋ฉด (jimyeon). ์ข์ํ๋ค (joahada) means โlike,โ and the word ์ง๋ฉด (jimyeon) stands for โifโ and serves as a connector.
- ๋ค๊ฐ (nega) – This means โyouโย
- ๋ค๋ฅธ ์ฌ๋ (dareun saram) – This means โanother personโ
The second line of the stanza has the following meaning:
๋ด๊ฐ ๋ ์๋ ๊ฒ ์ต์ํด์ง๋ฉด
(naega neo eomneun ge iksukaejimyeon)
If I get used to being without you
- ์ต์ํด์ง๋ฉด (iksukaejimyeon) – This comes from the root word ์ต์ํ๋ค (iksukada)which means โaccustomedโ or โbe used toโ. Again it is added with ์ง๋ฉด which is a connector.
- ๋ด๊ฐ (naega) – This means โIโ or โmeโ
- ์๋ (eomneun) – This is from the word ์๋ค (eopda) which means โnoneโ or โnothing.โ ๋ (neun) is a particle used to designate the main idea, topic, or issue and can be attached to both subject and object.
Let’s take a look at the third and fourth lines of this stanza:
๊ทธ๋๊ฐ ์ค๋ฉด ๊ทธ๋๊ฐ ๋๋ฉด
(geuttaega omyeon geuttaega doemyeon)
When that time comes, when that happens
๊ทธ๋ ํค์ด์ง๋ฉด ๋ผ
(geuttae heeojimyeon dwae)
Then, we can break up
- ๊ทธ๋ (geuttae) – This word in this line is followed by ๊ฐ (ga) which can be used to refer to a time in the past or future. In this stanza ๊ทธ๋๊ฐ (geuttaega) means โat that time.โ
- ์ค๋ฉด (omyeon) and ๋๋ฉด (doemyeon) – These words are both followed by ๋ฉด (myeon) which indicates the possibility of the actions ์ค๋ค (oda), ๋๋ค (doeda) and ํค์ด์ง๋ค (he-eojida) to take place.
BtoBย – ๋ ์์ธ ์ ๋๋ค (Only One For Me)
BTOB is a K-Pop group known for its superb vocals. The group has been active in the industry since 2012. Besides their vocals, theyโre known to be gifted dancers as well. Recently, they made a comeback with the song โOnly One For Me.โ ย

This Korean song is about a person who decided to pursue and confess his feelings toward the woman he loves. He wants to express his feelings so he wonโt regret them in the future.
Let’s take a look at these lines from their song “Only One For Me”:
๋ ์์ธ ์ ๋๋ค ๋ ๋์ฌ์ผ ํ๋ค
์๋ฌด๋ฆฌ ์๊ฐํด๋ ๋ ๊ฒฐ๊ตญ ๋์ผ
Let’s go over the meaning of the first line of the stanza, which is made of 2 phrases.
๋ ์์ธ ์ ๋๋ค
(neo eopsin doenda)
I canโt be without you
๋ ๋์ฌ์ผ ํ๋ค
(nan neoyeoya handa)
I must be with you
- ๋ย ์์ธ (neo eopsin) – This means “without you.”
- ์ ๋๋ค (an doenda) – This is from the word ๋๋ค (doeda) which can mean โbe,โ and since it is preceded by ์ (an), the phrase literally means โcannot beโ.
- ๋ ๋์ฌ์ผ ํ๋ค (nan neoyeoya handa) – This meansย “I must be with you,” where ์ฌ์ผ ํ๋ค means “must.”
The next line of this stanza has the following meaning:
์๋ฌด๋ฆฌ ์๊ฐํด๋ ๋ ๊ฒฐ๊ตญ ๋์ผ
(amuri saenggakaedo nan gyeolguk neoya)
No matter what I think, in the end, itโs still you.
- ์๋ฌด๋ฆฌ (amuri) – This word is used to express โno matter howโ
- ์๊ฐํด (saenggakae) – This comes from the root word ์๊ฐํ๋ค (saenggakhada)which means โthinkโ.
- ๊ฒฐ๊ตญ (gyeolguk) – This means โin the endโ or โfinally.โ
Another line from their song has the following meaning:
ํ์์ ํํํ๋ฉฐ ์ด ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์
(pyeongsaengeul huhoehamyeo sal geot gata)
I think Iโll regret it for the rest of my life.
- ํ์ (pyeongsaeng) – This word means โlife.โ
- ํํํ๋ค (huhoehada) is โto regretโ.
- ๊ฒ ๊ฐ์ (geot gata) is used to express โseems likeโ or โto be likely to.โ
Hyuna –ย ๋นจ๊ฐ์ (Red)
Former Wondergirl and 4Minute singer HyunAโs song ๋นจ๊ฐ์ (ppalgaeyo) moves away from the sickly-sweet image of her that listeners of her previous hit song “bubble pop” mightโve had.
Although the lyrics ์์ญ์ด ์๋ฉ์ด๋ ๋นจ๊ฐ (wonsungi eongdeongineun ppalgae | a monkeyโs butt is red) are the most catchy of the song, you might find that particular phrase a little bit difficult to use in general conversation.

We also donโt recommend saying ํผ๋ด์คํ ๋๊น ์๋ฉ์ด ๋ (honnaejultenikka eongdeongi dae) in public, either!
Here’s a line from her song “Red:”
๋ ๋๊ณ ๋ ๋์ง ๋ง ๋ ์ง๊ธ ๋๋ฌด๋ ์ธ๋กญ๋จ ๋ง์ด์ผ
This line is made up of 2 phrases. Let’s take a look at the meaning of these phrases.
๋ ๋๊ณ ๋ ๋์ง ๋ง
(nal dugo tteonaji ma)
Donโt leave me/ donโt go without me
๋ ์ง๊ธ ๋๋ฌด๋ ์ธ๋กญ๋จ ๋ง์ด์ผ
(na jigeum neomuna oeropdan mariya)
Iโm so lonely right now
Many K-pop songs use contractions so that the lyrics fit into the song. For example ๋๋ (naneun) becomes ๋ (nan) and ๋๋ฅผ (nareul) becomes ๋ (nal). This is important to look out for as these contractions might not come up straight away in a dictionary.
- ๋ (nan) – This word comes from the word ๋๋ (naneun) which can mean “I” or “me.”
- ๋๋ค (duda) – This word means to put something down or leave something in a place (for example, ์ฑ ์ ์ฑ ์์ ๋๋ค (chaegeul chaeksange duda)would mean to put a book on a desk).
- ๋ ๋๋ค (tteonada) – This means to leave as in “to depart” (์ถ๋ฐํ๋ค | chulbalhada – also has the same meaning and is often used in announcements at airports or train stations instead). So ๋๊ณ ๋ ๋๋ค (dugo tteonada)means departing without taking the other thing with you.
- โ์ง๋ง (โjima) is a shortened way of saying โ์ง ๋ง์ธ์ (โji maseyo) which means โdonโtโ in Korean and can be attached to the end of any verb. Often you will hear ๊ฐ์ง๋ง (gajima | donโt go) in song lyrics instead of ๋๊ณ ๋ ๋์ง๋ง (dugo tteonajima).
For the 2nd part of the line, below is the meaning of the words in it.ย
- ์ง๊ธ (jigeum) – This word means “now.”
- ๋๋ฌด๋ (neomuna) – This can mean “so” or “too much.”
- ์ธ๋กญ๋จ (oeropdan) – This comes from the word ์ธ๋กญ๋ค, which means “lonely.”
- ๋ง์ด์ผ (mariya) comes from ๋ง (mal) meaning word or speech. A common expression using it is ๋ฌด์จ ๋ง์ด์ผ (museun mariya), meaning (very informally) “what did you say?”. This phrase can be heard often in Korean dramas whenever a character is surprised at the ridiculous situation that is unfolding. Used in this sentence, it is like Hyun-A is saying, “What Iโm saying is Iโm so lonely right now.”
Sistar โ Touch My Body

Let’s take a look at this line from their song “Touch My Body”:
๋์ด ํจ๊ป ๋ณด๋ ์ ๋ณ๋ค
Here’s the meaning of the line:
๋์ด ํจ๊ป ๋ณด๋ ์ ๋ณ๋ค
(duri hamkke boneun jeo byeoldeul)
The stars we are looking at together
- ๋ (dul) – This word means “two” and, in this situation could be translated as “the two of us”.
- ํจ๊ป (hamkke) – This is another word for “together” (as opposed to the more common ๊ฐ์ด | gachi).
- ๋ณด๋ ๋ณ๋ค (boneun byeoldeul) – This means “the stars that are seen / we can see”.
- “A” ํ๋ ๊ฒ (“A” haneun geot) is a useful piece of grammar that means “the thing that does โAโ”. It is used a lot in Korean, for example, “์ ๋ ์ด๋ํ๋ ๋จ์๋ฅผ ์ข์ํด์ (jeoneun undonghaneun namjareul joahaeyo | I like guys that exercise).”
Another line from their song is:ย
์ด๋ ๋๊ตฌ๋ณด๋ค ํ๋ณตํดย
(eoneu nuguboda haengbokae)
Iโm happier than anybody
- ๋ณด๋ค (boda) – This is another useful word. In Korean, to say A is better than B, you can say:
“B๋ณด๋คA(์ด/๊ฐ) ๋ ์ข๋ค (B boda A(i/ga) deo jota)”
As you can see, the word order is different in Korean than in the related Korean expression. In this line, โAโ (์ ๊ฐ | jega) has been omitted to make the lyric fit into the song.
Another example of this piece of grammar being used with words omitted is the title of the Korean drama “๊ฝ๋ณด๋ค๋จ์ (kkotbodanamja),” which translates to “Boys Over Flowers.” Fans of this drama can use its title to help them remember this piece of grammar and the word order within it.
“Touch my Body” has lots of English in it, and the words ์ฐ๋ฆฌ (uri | we/us/our) and ์ง๊ธ (jigeum | now) come up a lot. It could be quite an easy choice to sing along to for some parts, at least.ย
Exo –ย ๋๋์ ๋ฏธ๋ ย (Wolf)ย
The wolfย (๋๋ | neukdae) in this song title is a word often used as slang for a guy who hits on women.

Here’s a part of a line from their song “Wolf”:
ํฐ์ผ ๋ฌ์ง
(keunil natji)
Heโs in big trouble
- ํฐ์ผ (keunil) – This means “problem”, “crisis”, or “trouble”. When it is used, it is usually combined with the verb ๋๋ค meaning “to come out.”
- ๋๋ค (nada) – This verb is used with other words like ์ด (yeol | fever) and ํ (hwa | anger) to make ์ด์ด ๋๋ค (yeori nada) and ํ๊ฐ ๋๋ค (hwaga nada).
- ๋ฌ๋ค (natda) – This is the past tense version of ๋๋ค (nada). Later in the song, this word comes up again in the line โ๋ ๋ชป ๋๊ฒ ์ด, ํฐ์ผ ๋ฌ์ด (neol mot kkeunkesseo, keunil nasseo)โ meaning โI canโt quit you, Iโm in big trouble.
Miss A โ I Caught Ya
Here’s a line from Miss A’s song “I Caught Ya”:
๋ ๋ฏธ์ํ ์๊ฒฉ์ด ์์ด์
(neon mianhal jagyeogi eopseoyo)
You have no right to be sorry
- ์๊ฒฉ์ด ์๋ค (jagyeogi itda) – This is a useful phrase to learn. It means “I deserve” and can be used in many situations, such as at the end of a long day when you can say ๋งฅ์ฃผ๋ฅผ ๋ง์ค ์๊ฒฉ์ด ์์ด์ (maekjureul masil jagyeogi isseoyo | I deserve a beer).
- ์๊ฒฉ์ด ์๋ค (jagyeogi eopda) – This phrase means “donโt deserve”. This is the opposite of ์๊ฒฉ์ด ์๋ค (jagyeogi itda).ย
As mentioned before, Kpop lyrics often use Korean in a strange way, and this song is no different, using ์ (yo)when there is no need to be polite to a cheating boyfriend. It also sounds a bit strange when compared to some of the songโs other lyrics, like ์๋๋ฌ์ฐ๋๊น ๊บผ์ ธ ์ค๋์ (sikkeureounikka kkeojyeo jullaeyo | shut up and get lost please).
4 Minute โ ๋ฏธ์ณ (Crazy)
Let’s take a look at the following stanza from 4 Minute’s song “Crazy”:
๋ ๋ณด๊ณ ๋ฏธ์ณ
(C.R.A.Z.Y) ๋ฐ๋ผ ํด
(C.R.A.Z.Y) ๋ชจ๋ ๋ค ๋ฏธ์ณ
Here’s the meaning of the following lines:
๋ ๋ณด๊ณ ๋ฏธ์ณ
(nal bogo michyeo)
Look at me and go crazy
C.R.A.Z.Y ๋ฐ๋ผ ํด
(C.R.A.Z.Y. ttara hae)
C.R.A.Z.Y. follow me
C.R.A.Z.Y ๋ชจ๋ ๋ค ๋ฏธ์ณ
(C.R.A.Z.Y modu da michyeo)
C.R.A.Z.Y everybody go crazy
- ๊ณ (go) – This word is used as a way of linking verbs together and means “and” in English. It is used when the two activities are not directly related.
- ย ์ (seo) – This is used instead of verbs or words that are directly related. For example, ์น๊ตฌ๋ฅผ ๋ง๋์ ๋์์ด์ (chingureul mannaseo norasseoyo | I met my friends and played). In these particular lyrics, either ์ (seo) or ๊ณ (go) would be acceptable.
- ๋ฏธ์น๋ค (michida | to be crazy) – This is a very popular word in Kpop lyrics.
- The rest of the chorus uses the expression ๋ฐ๋ผ ํด (ttara hae), which means “follow me” or “repeat after me,” as if 4 Minute wants the crowd to shout out C.R.A.Z.Y. You can use this as it is or insert “๋ง (mal)” to say ๋ฐ๋ผ ๋ง ํด (ttara mal hae) which would have the same meaning.
Wrap Up
Remember, when you learn Korean with Kpop, you need to be careful because, as with Korean dramas, the language used isnโt always the most natural way to say something. Now that you know the meaning of the lyrics to these songs, you can practice while listening and try to form your own sentences. You might even get to sing these in Korean karaoke!
What K-pop songs would you like for us to break down for you next? Which songs do you think would be the most useful to use when learning Korean? Which Korean songs do you like best for studying? Or most important, which K-pop groups do you think are the best? Let us know in the comments below!
For more ways to learn Korean, you can explore some apps to help you in your language journey. Best of luck!
Photo Credit: Bigstock.com
I Loved To Article And Look Forward To More Like I Purple You Unni ^^ <3
That’s great! We’re glad that it has been valuable to you. ^^
I told my mom that i always want learn korean d=from k-pop
That’s great! ^^
I like k pop and speak korean
Awesome! ^^
I love the lesson,but “ใน” is the letter L and R in English. So how do I know if it is L or R in a sentence.A word like ‘ํฐ ์ผ’ which is pronounced ‘keunil’ , can’t it be ‘keunir’?. What I mean is I don’t know when yo use the L or R in a word or sentence.
Hi, Hobi’s girl! In English, there’s no alphabet that 100% matches the pronunciation of ใน. That’s why we use L or R for reference. Please try to pronounce ใน as it is instead of using romanizations!
The “ใน” sounds like a combination of the two letters “l” and “r” in English so thats why those two letters are used interchangeably as the romanization for the “ใน” character
I know I’m really late to say this but when ใน is the last syllable in a block it’s pronounced as L. Ex. ํฌ๋ here the r/l in korean is the last syllable in the block. So it’s pronunciation leans more to the L side. Now ์ฌ๋ , in this word the R/L is not the last syllable of the block so it’s pronounced more as R. But not completely R Or L. In both ways it’s pronounced between R and L, but depending on where the syllable is, the power of the syllable changes๐
ใน is between l,r so when you say it you are saying both L and R at the same time!
“Iโll search the ?
๋ ๋ค์ ์ฐพ์ ๋๊น์ง
๋์ง ์์ ๊ฑฐ์ผ ํฐ๋ ๊ฐ์ ๊ธฐ์ต๋” ?
_EXO
Great lyrics! ^^